State legislature must protect integrity of girls’ high school sports

I have seen girls out on the high school football field.

Dean Manning is sports editor of the News Journal.

I don’t remember the exact team, but the center was a girl. It wasn’t a local team, but she hung right in there with the boys.

The majority of times that I have seen girls on the football field has been as the place kicker. Extra points can be one of the most adventurous plays in high school football so I don’t blame coaches for finding the best kicker they can no matter their biology.

Too many games have been decided on a made or missed extra point.

With the addition of Corbin’s wrestling team, I have seen the girls mix it up with the boys on the mat because most girls’ teams don’t have enough members.

In wrestling, the girls have a chance because the weight classes put wrestlers of roughly the same size up against each other. You are not going to see a 285-pound boy wrestling a 112-pound girl.

The Kentucky State Legislature recently followed suit with other legislatures across the country by passing Senate Bill 83, that would, “prohibit male students from participating in athletic teams, activities, and sports designated as ‘girls.’”

The student’s sex is that listed on the student’s birth certificate as originally issued at the time of birth or at the time of adoption.

This would make sense to most people.

The 6’5” 220-pound center on the boys’ basketball team can’t declare that he is now a she and go out for the girls’ basketball team.

The boy that is down in the standings in the pole vault because he is only clearing 6’, can’t declare that he is now a she and compete against the girls where that height would win or be near the top.

A lot of us have played Madden on the Xbox or Play Station and thrown for 500 yards or come off the end and blindsided the quarterback.

But on the real life football field, against real players, we would be awful, even if the opposition was the eight-year-olds in the local little league.

The current men’s world record in the 100-meter dash is 9.57 set by Usain Bolt in 2009

The current women’s record is 10.49 seconds set by Florence Griffith-Joyner in 1988.

The fastest woman in 2021 was Elaine Thomspon-Herah with a time of 10.54 on Aug. 21.

The men’s world record fell below that on Aug. 11, 1900.

Women are pole vaulting just over five meters, or just over 16 feet.

A male pole vaulter with that mark would barely crack the top 500 in the men’s ranks.

Mediocre men will outperform women in most sports.

I’m not talking about the guys playing beer league softball trying to play a girls’ fast pitch softball team or Joe hacker golfer trying to play against a high school or college age girl that has been taking lessons and practicing every facet of the game regularly.

He may outdrive her, but she is less likely to end up in the trees or three-putt.

At a certain point, skill becomes a factor.

Take a look at 43-year-old New Zealand weightlifter Laurel Hubbard, who transitioned from male to female almost 10 years prior to competing with the 2021 Tokyo Olympics.

Despite competing in a sport where strength is essential, Hubbard failed to medal after failing on her first three lifts.

At the other end of the spectrum is UPenn swimmer Lia Thomas who has broken multiple records and dominated multiple collegiate events.

In the interest of full disclosure, Thomas did lose in the women’s 100-yard freestyle. However, it was to yet another transgender swimmer, Iszac Henig.

Gov Andy Beshear has vetoed SB 83, explaining that the Kentucky High School Athletic Association already addresses the issue by requiring a student-athlete that has undergone gender reassignment surgery after puberty to take hormonal therapy for a sufficient length of time to minimize the gender-related advantages that she would have.

I will give the KHSAA tremendous credit for getting so much right and little, if anything, wrong when it comes to high school sports.

But that doesn’t mean that will continue down the road and it won’t change as new people take over leadership in the organization.

There will always be exceptions to the rules, but the Legislature overriding Gov. Beshear’s veto will help protect girls’ high school athletics from the potential of a Lia Thomas destroying years of hard work by high school girls that have trained and sacrificed for years to be the best in their chosen sport.

They deserve that opportunity.